Sign the Fire Jim Bowden Petition.
This isn't cheapness. This is pure incompetence by the negotiator. Our guy told their guy that he "didn't think there was anything more to talk about" on Thursday. If there's a list of things you never say in a negotiation, that's at the top of the list. OK, that's the agent's side of the story, but Bowden didn't deny it.
In just the last month Bowden's incompetence cost us Cordero and now Crow. Arrogance. Petulance. Idiocy.
Sign the Fire Jim Bowden Petition.
If we can get up to a respectable number (let's say 900, 10% of the Nationals' TV audience?--we're at 114 now), I will seriously print the thing and walk into Nationals team offices Micheal Moore-style to deliver it to Bowden in person. I really think the Post and Times will pick this up if we can get up to a number in that ballpark.
We're not just sucker fans. We have a voice. But I need your help. Sign the petition. Get your friends to sign. Make it happen. We need to dump Bowden before he does any more damage.
Sign the Fire Jim Bowden Petition.
8 comments:
Wow...I just got home tonight and read about Crow not signing. First off I need to say two things: 1. Thank god we at least signed Ramirez or tonight would have totally sucked. Not saying that signing Ramirez was directly correlated to signing Crow but its nice to get something.
I know most people want Bowden's head right now (and I do want to see a replacement), but I don't think this is his fault. If you read the Nats Journal and believe Bowden, which in this case I do since we have heard a few reports of Crow asking for at least $8 million, I do believe Bowden when he says that Crow's initial number was $9 million 3 days ago. And that Crows people didn't come down from that until less than an hour before the signing deadline.
I'm sorry but $9 million is crazy, Alonzo, Posey and Alveraz weren't asking for $9 million and all were drafted ahead of Crow and only one of which ended up recieving an ML contact. I do feel that Crows agents represented him in bad faith, not even the Yankees would have paid Crow $9 million much less half of that which is what they came down to as their offer. Crow should not have gotten both a ML contract an over a million more than Matusz, who is a better pitcher. Crow got a more than fair deal and I feel like him and his agents were using the Nats 'desperation' to their advantage and i DON'T WANT any player that thinks so little of the team that he will exploit their weaknesses.
I can't believe it's come to this, but I signed your petition.
Stephen,
I think you ought use this venue this morning to put right your comment from last night - vitriolic bombastic comment is what the Internet is about - but when we show absolutely no respect for bounds (say, by comparing not signing Crow to 9/11), it becomes everything Buzz Bissinger claimed it was in his rant, to say nothing of what little respect it shows for Nats fans who lost friends and friends of friends in that attack.
At some point, whether or not I agree with your point on Bowden becomes entirely secondary to the fact that you seem to know no bounds in your pure hatred and hateful spite of the man. I'm not sure you even know yourself when you've crossed the line. It's shameful, and far from driving me towards your petition, you've driven me away from your blog.
@Bob--I can't believe it's come to this either. Believe me, I would much rather have less evidence for my "fire JimBo" position. This is horrible.
@Steve--I hear you. There's blame to be shared by the agent and the player. But look, this situation devolved into a penis-measuring contest long ago, and from what's been reported, the Nationals are mostly to blame for that. Not just Bowden, but Kasten, Lerner, and Bowden all spent the last 2 months negotiating in public, insisting on slot... When you're saying both publicly (and according to Hendricks privately) that there's no point in talking, that it's slot or nothing, punk, you are creating a dangerous game of chicken. And, it would appear, that when the clock struck midnight, Bowden was still standng there waving his dick saying "mine's bigger!!"
Oh yeah, Henricks is a jerk too, and I wouldn't want him running my team either. It takes 2 to mess up something this colossally. But Bowden's the guy I have to live with in the morning, so he's getting the focus of my ire.
@295--as I said on NJ, my comment was ironic.
I was making fun of Bowden for the comment he made 6 years ago comparing the players union to al Qaeda. Based on your reaction, maybe you aren't familiar with the context. If you *are* familiar with the context and you're still this worked up, then I think maybe your irony gene is defective. But regardless, I'm sorry you were turned off.
I will however take back my statement that JimBo has had sex with his mother. That I agree was over the line ;)
I think there is enough blame to go around here. It seems like most of the draft picks in the upper half negotiated in a similar style. As late as yesterday, there were plenty of reports that Alvarez wasn't close to signing in Pittsburgh. All of those picks ended up getting done except for Crow and the Nats.
Like many others have said, it feels so awful because not very much else has gone right this season, and this is the one area that should have gotten done. But when you view this within the context of not just the wins and losses this season, but the other moves they have made, and it's hard to feel good about where this team is headed.
The last few weeks have been particularly brutal, from the Guzman re-signing to trading Rauch for a player who has never shown any sign of plate discipline.
Interesting thing mike in bringing up the Pirates, a team that historically has taken easy signs over top talent. This year they went for arguebly the best player in the draft and stuck to their guns. Sure Alvarez got $6 million but the early reports were he wanted Mark Texiera money ($9.5 million and a major league contract, apparently what Crow wanted also). This is the reason why i'm not prepared to burn down the Nationals uncompleted offices this morning. The Nationals did what the Pirates, Royals, and Reds have all been doing. For the past few weeks, maybe not as often or as much but these teams have been toeing the line saying the will not give out $8 million dollar bonuses or huge ML contracts. I've heard reports talking about how they weren't going to exceed Tim Beckhams deal, and if they couldn't work out an agreement they were content to recieve an early 1st round pick next year. This is basically what the Nats did. Now i'm not trying to defend Bowden and company as a great FO I look forward to Bowden being gone this offseason, I just dont think this is on him. In everyone of those other cases there were reports out that the team made a 'final offer' or 'max offer' and it was take it or leave it for the player and his agent.
To me the failure wasn't the team but the agent. I know both Alvarez and Hosmer were Boras guys and I think Alonzo may have been as well. We heard all the predraft retoric that Hosmer would be happy to go to college and Alonzo would play indy ball and apparently live with Arod if they didn't get their big bonus demands. I have no problem with agents and players doing this, they want to get the best deal possible thats what a negotiation is all about. What I do have a problem with is an agent (Hendricks) holding firm at a completely unrealisitc demand until 20 min before the deadline. That is the difference in agents, Boras knows when to blink and Hendricks doesn't and that is the failure here.
@steve--I laid out my more complete, non-lashing-out thoughts on this in another post, if you're interested.
I don't disagree with your take on dispensation of blame. But for me I just don't *care* that Randy Hendicks is a screw up. This is probably the last time in my life I'll ever think about him. I care that my team just lost a premium talent for no good reason. So that's why I'm more focused on what went wrong on our side.
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